some writing about some things

Homebrew: Gluten Free Ale

I got this extract kit from my sister for Christmas, and finally got around to brewing it last weekend. She has cut back almost completely on gluten, so she figured this would be interesting. If I turn out to not like it, I’ll just give her the entire batch.

It has been fermenting away nicely for about 10 days, it smells great.

Note: didn’t refrigerate yeast for some reason, but the yeast was obviously viable since we had fermentation activity at about 8 hours.

OG = 14.8 Brix, 1.060 (a bit higher than target of 1.054-1.058)

Chilled it maybe a bit too much using my wort chiller, after adding water was 62 degrees. Should have just gone to 80 degrees then added water. The water is very cold in Chicago this time of year, so cool down is quite fast.

Forgot to add yeast nutrients and Irish moss again.

I transferred this beer after two weeks in primary. It was a complete mess because the orange and lemon peel had rehydrated and was half floating on top of the wort. When I used the auto-siphon it got clogged immediately with the orange peel, and I could not get a continuous stream of wort out of the fermenter. I ended up pumping about 1/2 the 5 gallons through, which introduced quite a bit of air into the wort. We’ll see how this affects taste. I also didn’t get a refractometer reading since the beer had so many solids in it at the time.